I stumbled upon this word lately, as in
he was wont to come early
I'm wondering what feeling it has for native speakers.
For example, can I use in a meeting, or in a written report?
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4You won't want to use wont, too often. – Phillip Ngan Nov 09 '11 at 03:01
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I am a native speaker (American) and I rarely see this word used other than in literature or poetry. Perhaps native speakers from other countries can weigh in, but I would not use it in a meeting or written report. The most common usage I have seen, which is considered either formal or humorous (according to the Dictionary app on my Mac), is in a sentence such as the following: Reginald added just a few drops of milk to his tea, as was his wont.
Todd Prouty
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3I agree, and would only add that this word would sound out of place unless the meeting or report in question would be targeting an audience of professors of English. +1 – Robusto Dec 04 '10 at 14:07
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ahaha! good to know. Not being native speaker sometimes put me in an inferiority complex... – Uberto Dec 04 '10 at 14:25
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In Australia it has a ring of formality, but you do hear it from time to time, though perhaps a touch idiomatically - '..., as he is wont' and the like probably occur a good ten times as frequently as 'He is wont to...'.
wyatt
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3Agree completely - wont is far from unknown, but these days it's normally as a self-conscious / quirky / idiomatic usage. And when it is used, it's far more likely to be as is his wont, or as he is wont [to do] tacked on to the end of a statement, rather than at the start. Perhaps because we half expect listeners to be slightly fazed by it, so we want to get in the thing we're really saying first. – FumbleFingers Jan 03 '12 at 00:08
